Moving Shadows
by Influence
Summary: 10 years after the SuperHive was destroyed, the Atlantis expedition starts exploring other galaxies. They send observers, who go undercover. One of them finds herself racing across the galaxy to find people who are collecting Ancient superweapons.
1. Chapter 1

Moving Shadows

Disclaimer: Don't own them. Just like taking a handful of sand from the SGA sandbox and putting it into the Star Wars sandbox, that's all.

Note: Yes, they can build Supergates. For the story to work, they need to. And no, they haven't managed to completely wipe out the Wraith. They're stuck on a backwater planet somewhere. And most of this isn't set in the Pegasus galaxy, I know, but read the sequel, Passing Light. (Which is almost finished, but not posted yet.) That is mostly set in Pegasus. Get ye over it. Oh, they haven't heard of Star Wars.

Location: The Aurora, F-305 mothership, Supergate, Pegasus Galaxy

Kari stood on the observation deck, staring out at the stars, trying to find a particular spot of light. That spot of light would become her home soon, however temporary. She was going to another galaxy, as an observer. To watch the 'locals' and see if they could make first contact with them.

Kari had long black hair and blue eyes, and she was short. To look at her, you wouldn't think that she could throw a 200 pound man across a room, but she could. That came from her mother's side of the family. Her father had given her most of her personality though. Stubborn to the extreme, but flexible when needed, and a unwavering loyalty to her homeworld, Earth. She had travelled back with Atlantis to the Pegasus galaxy when they returned from the Milky Way, so she had been with the expedition for a number of years. Kari's speciality was in astrophysics, and as such put her under the leadership of Dr. McKay. In other words, she had to work for the biggest pain-in-the-ass in two galaxies.

The ship's intercom sounded. "All observers, to the flight deck. All observers to the flight deck." Kari turned and walked down the hall to the 'lift. She felt butterflies practicing aerial manoeuvres in her stomach. Every time she even thought of something that made her nervous, the butterflies decided it was time to scramble. Kari knew that she shouldn't have been worried. After all, she had the training for this, and all the necessary skills to survive in a galaxy far far away. But she was still scared.

On the flight deck, the people who would be travelling to the other galaxy were gathered in a small circle, receiving last-minute instructions from Dr Weir. "Your subspace beacons are for emergency only. Only use them if there is no other choice. From what we've seen already, these people may have the technology to pick up our transmissions, and we don't know how they'll react to extragalactic visitors. So try not to foul up. There are your transports," she motioned towards a set of shuttles, "Good luck."

Kari and the others boarded the shuttles. As she looked around at the different faces, Kari saw that some were just as nervous as she was. They waited for the Aurora to dial the Supergate, and finally, they were off on the biggest journey of their lives. Again.


	2. Chapter 2

Kari waved goodbye to the shuttle. It was doubtful that the pilot would actually look, but she wanted to do it anyway.

Now she was completely on her own, having been dropped off on a remote planet. The planet, called Dobran, had only a few small settlements and a population of about five hundred. From here, she was supposed to see as much of this galaxy as she could. Kari started walking towards the nearest town. When she got there, she found that most people were fairly busy, and because of the hot weather, wore shorts and what she would call t-shirts.

Kari walked into the local bar. She had nowhere else to go and figured that this place was as good as any. She stood at the bar, wondering if anybody needed a good worker. "Hello sweetheart, what'll it be?" The bartender had a friendly smile on his face.

"I don't know, I just arrived in town. Don't suppose you know where I could get a job?" Kari grinned. These guys weren't too different from the ones back home.

"Well, I've been looking for somebody to be a waitress since my niece Nesha left town. You just arrive on the transport?"

"Yeah. I wanted to get away from home, so I decided to see just how far away I could get." Kari shrugged. It was the truth. He just didn't know how far she had come.

The bartender nodded knowingly. "Ah, I know what you mean. If you want to, you can work here. Pays 15 credits an hour, you have to wear a uniform, and if you're looking for a place to live, I've got a spare room. What do you say?"

He seemed friendly enough, so Kari accepted. After some more conversation, she found out that his name was Temu and he had two kids, both boys and grown up.

The months went by, and Kari soon became part of the town just like anybody else. Soon enough, she knew everybody.

Everything was pretty normal, until the day pirates attacked the settlement.

The first clue Kari had about them was the ear-splitting noise as they buzzed the settlement. That, and the pirates taking money, food, and anything else they could find. Then they started shooting. Kari ran from building to building, somehow ending up at the junkyard.

Standing in an abandoned corner, was a run-down and battered looking X-wing with an R2 unit standing next to it. The

R2 came up to Kari and started beeping wildly. "I can't understand you!" Kari yelled at the little astromech when she became really annoyed. It zoomed around a corner then came back, as if it wanted Kari to follow it. She shrugged and looked up at the sky, waiting for a pirate to swoop down and attack her. When none came, Kari ran through the junkyard, ending up at the X-wing. The R2 unit bumped her towards the ladder.

"I have flying experience, but I've never flown this thing!" When it kept bumping her, she gave in and got into the cockpit. When the R2 unit was settled, Kari started talking to it through the X-wing. "We can't do much against five pirates, so what the hell did you put me in here for?"

SOMEBODY HAS TO SAVE THE DAY.

"But does that person have to be me?" The X-wing started up and lifted off the ground. "Okay, okay, let's do this. I'm going to need your help." Kari looked around the cockpit. She recognised most of the controls from when she flew in a F-302 so that she knew how to fly for this mission. Just in case.

ARE YOU READY?

"No."

GOOD.

The X-wing flew up to the outer atmosphere. The pirates noticed this and followed, intent on destroying this upstart who dared to defy their authority. "Here they come!"

WEAPONS READY.

"Good for us." Kari started to go through the breathing exercises her mother had taught her. Then the pirates started shooting. Kari reacted instinctively, not thinking about what she was doing. Before she knew it, most of the pirate ships had been destroyed and the rest were running away. Kari landed back in the junkyard and sagged back into the seat. She couldn't even remember firing at the pirates. "Good shooting, R2." She complimented the astromech.

MY NAME IS HOPE. I WASN'T THE ONE WHO WAS PULLING THE TRIGGER.

"Hello Hope." Kari got out of the X-wing and sat on the ground next to Hope. "Well, that was fun." Hope beeped what sounded like an affirmative.

The owner of the junkyard, an old man called Raymin, came running up. Or what passed for running when you were fifty-plus years old. He looked at the X-wing in shock, then settled for staring at Kari.

Kari thought she better say something. "Hi?"

"You flew that?" Raymin was amazed that the waitress he'd got to know over the past six months could fly with such precision. When she nodded, he sat down on the ground, gazing up at the X-wing, lost in his memories.

Kari just decided to sit there and have a rest, but Raymin said, "It's been a long time."

"A long time for what?" Kari frowned.

Raymin smiled and looked at her. "I was a fighter pilot way back. This," he indicated the X-wing, "was my ship. Until an accident got me discharged due to medical reasons. Since then, she's never left the ground. I thought she'd never fly again." Raymin stood up. "They're yours. Good luck, Hope, you're gonna need to teach her how it's done." Hope beeped in recognition.

"What?" Now Kari was really confused.

Raymin threw a smile over his shoulder as he ambled off towards his shack. Hope turned his small dome 'head' towards her and beeped once. "What?"

Later, Kari was in the bar, doing her job and listening to rumours and speculation about the mysterious X-wing pilot when a man in a Republic Navy uniform approached her. "Hello," he said, "I'm Major Irun."

"Karisa Mance. Welome to Dobran, if you haven't been here before. And if you have, welcome back." Kari gave him her special smile, the one she saved for people who needed to think that she was a waitress and nothing more.

He grinned in reply and said, "I'd like to talk to you for a minute, if that's alright." Kari looked around the bar, it wasn't that full but it would be in an hour or so.

"Okay, what did you want to talk about?"

"I've heard a lot about this mysterious pilot who flew up in a battered X-wing, took out three pirates, and vanished without a trace. Do you know who it is?"

Kari shrugged. Even though she had good control of her facial expression, Kari was still struggling not to smile. "Lots of rumours. Some finger-pointing. I have no idea who the pilot is, and neither does anybody else. Except for the pilot, of course, but they're not telling." She was enjoying this game, there was something Major Irun was hiding.

"I know who the pilot is."

"Really? Who?" Kari smiled in anticipation of attention deflected from her.

"You." The Major grinned, knowing he had just shaken her control.

All sorts of emotions crossed Kari's face: shock, wonderment, awe, and finally settling on embarrassment. "And how do you know it was me?"

"I asked Raymin." At this, Kari slammed her head down on the table. She looked at the Major sheepishly.

"Dammit."

"I've got a proposition for you: you can come and train at our base on Thimia. We could use a good pilot like you. What do you say?"

The last time somebody had said those four words to her, Kari got a job and more friends than she'd thought she'd have in a lifetime. So she decided to accept. "Alright. But I have my own X-wing and R2 unit. Can I use them?"

"They'll have to get checked out by mechanics, but I think it'll be ok."

Two weeks later, Kari was on Thimia, enjoying her training. Not really. Most of the time it gave her insomnia. But, she supposed, this was 'getting to know the locals'. She cut her long hair, so it would be easier on her when she was wearing a helmet.

Kari was in a class of six cadets, including herself. Thimia was a small out-of-the-way planet, and since crime didn't happen too often around here, the base was small. Very small. It was mainly a training facility, with little to no defences.

The other cadets were all humans from similar backgrounds as Kari. At first, it was awkward, but over time they began to treat Kari like one of their own. Kari also started to understand Hope, without having to use any sort of translator. It was quite useful in an emergency, so they could speak privately. Major Irun taught them astronavigation, communications, and everyone's favourite class: flying. They spent at least two hours a day in one of the simulators.

One day, six months after her recruitment, Major Irun called them into the conference room to tell them about some visitors they would be having for a few weeks. Wraith Squadron, under the leadership of the famous Wedge Antilles, would be conducting an inspection. An inspection of not just the base, but its cadets too. Everybody was excited, including Kari, about the prospect. And some were more than a bit nervous.

ARE YOU ALRIGHT, KARI?

Kari sighed. She was in one of the simulators, fighting off TIE fighters. "I'm fine Hope. Just a bit nervous with the inspection and all."

ARE YOU AFRAID THEY WON'T LIKE YOU?

"Maybe. Or maybe I'm worried about that 'whole thing'." Kari had told Hope about where she really came from.

THEY WON'T FIND OUT. SUCH A PROPOSITION IS TOO STRANGE, EVEN FOR WRAITH SQUADRON.

"Thanks, Hope." Kari got out of the simulator and she heard fighters. Wraith Squadron wasn't due for another three hours, so, unless they had decided to pull a fast one, somebody else was here. Then the shooting began.

All of her COs rushed towards the main hanger. They just managed to get inside when the hanger itself collapsed. All of the cadets were shocked.

"What do we do now?" asked Terley Rochun. "We can't get into the armoury, they," he gestured towards what was left of the hanger, "had all the keys."

"First things first: we have to hide and find out what they're up to. The forest is our best bet. The wildlife will confuse our lifesigns." Kari took charge, because they needed somebody to be charge. Everybody shrugged and ran towards the forest, trying to dodge laser fire and praying that whoever was attacking the base was also stupid enough not to realise that there were people left.

They all met up at the base of a cliff. "We can't just let them take over the base!" gasped Ulby Lazha. "What do they want anyway?"

"How about we find out? But we'll have to be careful about it." Kari said.

"What's the plan?" Tayla Kalix asked.

"Here's what we do..."

**Please review! Also, I'm having a problem with one of my other stories. I need a squadron name, and since the squadron happnes to be the Pegasus version of the Rogues, it needs to sound pretty cool. Suggestions will be credited.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Apologies for the late update. I had a serious problem trying to figure out where this story would go. **

Chapter Two: Danger

Two people crawled up to the top of a hill overlooking what had once been the New Republic's base on Thimia. "I see... ten guards armed with blaster rifles, and... there's two people, a middle-aged man and a woman, poking around in the debris from the main hangar collapse. I hope they find a body and throw up." Moore Golmen muttered.

"You and me too, buddy. See anything else?" Erun Bussa asked.

"Nah- oh wait. They've uncovered something. A hatch, leading downwards. They're going in." Moore was so engrossed in looking through the electrobinoculars that he didn't notice the two scouts behind him until it was too late.

Thumps resounded behind him, and Moore turned to find Kari and Tayla crouching over the unconscious soldiers. "Alert much, Moore?" Tayla teased. In return, he merely scowled at her.

"What the hell is that?" Erun gasped. A pillar of golden light had suddenly come to life, shooting up into the sky. There was movement on the ground, and he scrambled for the binoculars, pressing them to his eyes. "Uh, guys? We have a problem." Near the ruined base below, several guards had begun to set up anti-air defenses. "It looks like they're expecting visitors."

"Wraith Squadron!" Ulby exclaimed, still breathing heavily from the run through the forest. "They're probably targeting Commander Antilles!"

"Probably. When are they due in again?" Kari looked at her watch (no, chrono, she corrected herself). It was the middle of the day, right about lunchtime. Maybe that was why her stomach was growling so loudly.

"In an hour or so," Terley replied. "We have to knock out those AA defenses before then."

"Great. So we have no weapons, a mysterious light, ten guards to knock out/kill, and one of the most famous pilots of the Rebellion on his way. Did I forget anything?" Tayla said sarcastically.

"Yeah. That hatch those two people went into. It was directly under the main hangar. Whatever these guys want, they destroyed an entire base just to get to it. We should probably check that out after we disable the anti-air defenses." Kari paused for a second. That pillar of light... she had seen something similar in Pegasus, on GJ3-567. Half of the scientific team sent to investigate had been killed on that mission, and Kari herself had barely made it out alive.

Fucking Ancients.

This poor, poor galaxy would be in for a rude awakening if that vaping weapon was reactivated. Not to mention what would happen if the Imperials got their hands on it. And she couldn't say anything about it. Damn!

"Okay, I was thinking that we should split up into two groups, one larger, one smaller. The small group will go and find out what the hell is going on with that light and the large one will destroy the AA defenses," Kari said, trying to make it sound like she wasn't ordering them to do something. The rest of the cadets just shrugged and nominated her as the leader.

Kari sighed and rolled her eyes. She had been in charge of quite a few teams back in Atlantis (practically second-in-command of the engineering and science departments), but that didn't mean she went looking for responsibility. But she really, really wanted to be in the group that went to investigate that dang light. "An hour until Wraith Squadron gets here. Eran, you're with me. We'll check out that light and the rest of you take out those missile launchers. We've got to be quick, 'cause they're going to come looking for this lot," she nudged one of the sleeping soldiers, "sooner or later."

The cadets split up, trying not to imagine what would happen if Wraith squadron arrived early.

Ten minutes later...

Kari and Eran creeped up to a pile of wreckage and peeked over the top of the twisted metal. Three guards stood over the mysterious hatch, blocking their way. The two cadets waited for their distraction: a rather loud explosion that the other three would cause over the other side of what used to be the hangar.

A loud bang sounded, and a fireball rose into the sky. All three guards took off running, shouting into their comlinks. Kari slipped out from the debris and peered down into the hatch. "Are there any guards down there?" Eran asked.

"Only one way to tell." Kari gave him a bright smile and he flinched, muttering something about how insane she was. She shrugged; it was all John's fault. He was the one who had instilled in her a love for the crazy plans (then again, it was always the crazy plans that saved the planet/galaxy/the-collective-arse-of-your-team).

She jumped down and landed on the balls of her feet, listening carefully for anybody in the vicinity. Kari couldn't hear anything, and motioned for Eran to come down. He climbed down the makeshift ladder slowly, showing his nervousness. Kari shook her head, he was exactly like a rookie she had met a couple of years ago. He bragged about how brave he was, then on his first mission out he nearly got killed when he didn't run fast enough.

The ladder came down in the middle of a three-way intersection. The tunnels were definitely of Ancient design, and Kari wondered how these people knew it existed. She also wondered how much C-4 she would need to use in order to blow this place (and any dangerous technology in it) to smithereens. They looked at the floor, and saw the the dust had been disturbed down the corridor to the right. Creeping along the wall, they came to a room. Two people were conversing in low tones. A woman said, "The Moff expects a report soon. You need to translate those symbols now."

The man replied, "I'm going as fast as I can with limited information. There are words here that are hopelessly technical and I'm a linguist, not a scientist. Adding to my problems, there isn't enough reference material to go on. I told him that I needed at least a month. Instead, he gives me three days to learn a new language that has, to my knowledge, never been studied before."

Kari smirked. She could read and speak Ancient fluently, thanks to her uncle Daniel and her work on Atlantis.

"You were chosen for your aptitude with languages, Doctor. If you can't help us, then you - and your wife - are of no use to us."

An intake of breath. "I understand. I'll try to step it up as much as I can, but I can't promise anything."

Kari glanced at her watch - no, chrono, she corrected herself. The terminology of this galaxy wasn't hard to figure out, but it was very annoying to not be able to refer to the toilet as a toilet, or an alcoholic drink as beer. 45 minutes left.

The sudden sound of footsteps heralded the departure of the woman from the room. Trying to balance herself perfectly on the ceiling without knocking any loose rocks down, Kari held her breath. The woman had the aura of a strict leader, and she held herself straight and upright. Kari had met several people like her before, and they all had one weakness: they hated the fact that some people were different and thus tried to establish absolute control over their subordinates.

The last one she had met got thrown out of an airlock by his subordinates. The paperwork and debriefings associated with the incident had been an absolute bitch.

As the woman's footsteps faded away, Kari closed her eyes then took a deep breath, leaping down to land on the ground of the tunnel. Eran reappeared from the shadow he had vanished into, giving her a questioning look and nodding towards the room, which was now occupied by only one person (they hoped).

Kari picked a small piece of rock off the floor and silently motioned for Eran to take up a position on the opposite side of the door. She threw the rock in and waited for somebody to investigate. Sure enough, a guard came to the door and Kari used a technique she had learned from Todd to knock him unconscious. The two cadets walked into the room quietly, and the linguist, who was hard at work translating the Ancient symbols, didn't even notice them until Kari spun him around and stunned him with a blaster she had procured from one of the soldiers who had tried to ambush them earlier in the forest.

She strode up to the control panel and quickly read through the scrolling text on the display screen. It was as bad as she had thought. It was exactly like the Ancient device on GJ3-567. This had once been a lab used by the Ancients to construct weaponry for the Wraith-Lantean war ten thousand years ago. Eran stood near her, cradling the guard's blaster rifle in his hands. "What is it?" he asked, worried when she let her head drop to her chest.

"Something very very bad." Kari's voice made Eran stop and consider. She sounded old, older than she could possibly be. "We need to destroy it." She looked straight at Eran and he nearly flinched. Kari suddenly had a dangerous look in her eyes, something that told the twenty-year-old that she wasn't joking and would fulfil the mission no matter what he thought.

"We could wake him up," Eran pointed to the doctor, who was starting to come around. "He could have overheard something useful."

A series of explosions above their heads signalled the destruction of nearly all the anti-air installations. The two cadets could suddenly hear a lot of yelling and the sound of general panic filled the air. Kari checked her chrono again; 30 minutes.

**Please review! Chapter Three in progress!**


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: Don't own most of the characters.**

Chapter Three: Wraiths

Soldiers rushed past the room, responding to the explosions. None of them noticed the guard on the floor, or the two cadets hiding in the shadows. Eran had his hand firmly covering the doctor's mouth, and Kari pointed a blaster at his head, making it perfectly clear what would happen if he cried out.

When everything in the corridor was quiet again, Eran slowly took his hand away from the linguist's mouth. The doctor didn't speak, but his eyes flickered between Kari and Eran for a minute, finally resting on the ground in front of him.

20 minutes.

The three got up and crept their way past several soldiers and out of the tunnel system. The whole time, the doctor was silent and submissive, doing whatever Kari told him. They crouched behind a set of boulders and carefully looked over the top.

10 minutes.

The other four cadets were involved in a nasty fire-fight with the Imperials. As Kari and Eran watched, Tayla was hit in the left shoulder and fell out of view. The doctor flinched, and Kari was glad to see it. That flinch meant he wasn't used to harsh realities and might not end up in a jail cell when this was over.

Kari heard a sudden noise which made her groan. X-wings. Probably Wraith Squadron. 12 fighters passed overhead, and Kari murmured several expletives describing exactly what she thought of their timing. The two cadets both held their blasters in their hands, and prepared to fire on the Imperials.

Laser fire flashed down from the sky, and Kari smiled grimly. What the Wraiths lacked in timing, they made up for in expert aim. Soon enough, all of the Imperials were either dead or surrendering. Ulby ran to the communications center in the main building and told the Wraiths where to land in the secondary hangar. As everybody walked or jogged towards the landing Wraiths, the part of the base that housed one of the Ancient's underground weapon labs was vacated. Kari pulled a remote detonator from her pocket and flipped a switch, destroying the tunnel network and any Ancient technology in it. Everybody turned to watch as a large sinkhole formed right under the wreckage of the main hangar. She quickly hid the detonator in her pocket and placed a look of surprise on her face. A man she presumed was Commander Antilles came running up and asked, "What happened?"

"The underground complex blew up, sir," Kari said bluntly.

The man turned his attention to her. "What underground complex?"

"The one an ancient race of people built. Did I forget to say that it was a weapons lab, sir?"

He stared at her incredulously. "What?"

Kari remained silent and let him absorb what she had said. The rest of Wraith Squadron came up behind him and stared at the now rather large hole in the ground.

"Woah," one of them said.

"Attention!" The commander barked.

Every cadet and most of the Imperials stood at attention. The doctor, on the other hand, just blinked in confusion.

"What exactly happened here?" When nobody answered, Kari stepped forward. "Cadet..."

"Mance, sir. Approximately three hours before you arrived, a Imperial force attacked the base. The main hangar was demolished, killing all the officers here." Kari proceeded to relate the rest of the story calmly, with the other cadets jumping in occasionally to furnish details she had forgotten.

Wedge closed his eyes. This story was unusual, even by Rogue or Wraith Squadron standards. And there was something about the small cadet that bothered him.

"Alright, get your stuff from your quarters." All of the cadets jogged towards the main building. Fifteen minutes later, Wedge saw Cadet Mance walking towards him, casually chatting with an astromech. He did a double-take as he realised that she was translating the beeps and whistles without any aid. "Cadet Mance," he said firmly, "there isn't enough room in the shuttle for everybody and your astromech. You'll have to leave him behind."

The R2 unit emitted a series of violent beeps that sounded like insults to Wedge's ear. "No," Kari said.

"Excuse me? I gave you an order, cadet. You will follow it."

Kari's eyes narrowed suddenly, and Wedge fought the instinct to take a step back. The aura of friendliness had completely disappeared in a split second. "Sir, I have my own X-wing in the secondary hangar. I will not leave either of them behind, and I don't care what you say."

"Why?"

"Why? Because that would be like leaving a friend behind, and I can't do that either, sir. Leaving people behind is unacceptable. I'm sorry sir, but I will not and I cannot follow your order."

The two just stared at each other, until Wedge cocked his head and asked, "Are you like this with all of your commanding officers?"

Kari tried to supress a smirk. "Yep."

"Get your X-wing ready, cadet. We're leaving in twenty minutes."

She just looked at him for a few seconds. "Thankyou, sir." Kari turned to leave, then looked back. "Sir?"

"Yes cadet?"

"You remind me of a friend of mine. He's exactly like you, oddly enough. Except he's a General," Kari broke into a huge grin. "See you in twenty minutes sir." She walked off towards the hangar, and even though Wedge couldn't see her face, he somehow knew she was smiling.

**No, Wedge and Kari do not get together. Ever. But I am considering giving her a boyfriend, I just don't know who yet.**

**Review if you guys want me to finish the story!**


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: Don't own 'em.**

Chapter Four - A New Type of Mission

Karisa Mance stood before the group of Generals and calmly reiterated the events at Thimia, being forced to stop and explain her every second sentence. Her patience was beginning to wear thin as they finally began talking about the one topic she didn't want to discuss: her quick translation of the Ancient (or as they were calling it, the Celestial's) language.

"Cadet," one of them asked (Kari had forgotten his name long ago), "please explain to us exactly how you are able to translate the Celestial's language instantly when a trained linguist couldn't in three hours."

"I learned all ten dialects of Ancient by the time I was fourteen, sir."

"'Ancient'? I was under the impression that the technology was old, but you say 'Ancient' as if it means something else, cadet," another one said.

"The Ancients were a race of humans that lived tens of millions of years ago. Call them the Alterans, the Ancients, the Ancestors, the Celestials. They were all the same people, the same race."

"You seem to know a lot about them, cadet. Perhaps you can tell us what they were doing on Thimia millions of years ago."

"Actually, sir, they were there about ten thousand years ago, and they were creating weapons in that lab." All of the Generals blinked in unison as they realised that the young cadet knew a lot more than they did.

"What kind of weapons, cadet?"

"Planet destroyers, mainly. A couple of them looked like different versions of the Attero device, which when set to a certain subspace frequency, destroys ships when they try to engage their hyperdrive. It also looked like there were a few chemical weapons in cold-hot storage."

"Chemical weapons? They could have been released when the lab self-destructed." This statement from Commander Antilles sent the General's eyebrows shooting straight up.

"Excuse me, sir, but if you were listening, I said that the chemical weapons were in 'cold-hot' storage. Cold-hot storage is a process the Ancients used to store biological weapons. When the lab was destroyed, automatic protocols would have focused the power of a thousand suns on the weapons, and they would have been completely eradicated. While the Ancients were stupid, they weren't entirely suicidal."

"Cadet Mance," one of the Generals asked, "please identify this device for us. Its' purpose continues to elude our best scientists."

Two guards brought a Ancient device in and placed it on a table in front of Kari. Right away she knew what it was. "You should never activate this, sir," Kari said with a smirk.

"And why's that, cadet? Is it another superweapon?"

"No sir. You see, some of the Ancients were also quite fond of pranks. This is one of the little things they made up to prank each other. At my guess, it was made by a man."

The group of Generals and Commander Antilles raised their eyebrows. "And how do you know that, cadet?" Wedge asked.

"Well, who else but a guy would create a device that dissolves fabric?" Kari tried to contain her laughter at the priceless looks on the face of every officer in the room. Some of the women actually smirked, obviously sharing her viewpoint on the subject.

Wedge's jaw dropped. She had obviously seen the device before, because she was able to identify it instantly. "Cadet, have you seen this before?"

She snorted. "Yep. On a mission to AN4 - TOM. John Sheppard, our team leader, touched another version of this thing. Woolsey wasn't impressed when we came stumbling back to base without any clothes on." Two imprints in the carpet caught her eye, and Kari quickly decided what it was.

Somebody was using a cloaking device. She turned the fabric dissolver upside down and removed a panel, fiddling around with the crystals inside. Somebody asked what she was doing, but Kari just mumbled something about hidden compartments. Finally placing the control crystal in a place that she was sure Rodney would yell at her for, Kari triggered a wave of energy that spread throughout the room. Suddenly, twelve people - humans - dressed in black appeared. Kari looked straight at the nearest one and said, "Yes, we can see you." The man's eyes widened, and he and his team drew their weapons. Strangely, none of the weapons required a power source, but Kari had to put that observation aside as she leapt at one of the intruders.

Chaos reigned as strangers attacked Republic officers and vice-versa. In the end, all of the intruders were subdued or running away. Kari looked sheepish as every person in the room turned to stare at her. "What?"

"How did you do that?" one of the Generals asked.

"I triggered a wave of excited particles that disrupted their cloaking fields."

"What?"

"I made it so then we could see them, sir."

"Well, that's obvious," Wedge said.

"Well, sir, you didn't understand the 'slightly-less-technical-than-usual' explanation, so I had to give you the 'I'm-talking-to-people-with-no-background-in-quantum-mechanics' one."

"We're not stupid," Wedge said, frowning.

"Never said you were. I just said that you obviously don't have any background in quantum mechanics."

"Alright then. Give us the complicated version."

Kari reeled off the procedure she had followed with the crystals, then finished up with a precise explanation of the energy particles and their dispersion pattern. Wedge's jaw dropped open again. He could understand one in ten words of what she had just said. Barely.

She smirked. A degree in astrophysics with a minor in quantum mechanics came in handy sometimes.

"Obviously you know a lot about the technology."

"More than you do, obviously. Especially if your best scientists couldn't identify a simple prank device."

"And how do you tell what something does?"

Kari grinned. "If there's a big red button on it, it's a prank device. If it looks really stupid, it's a superweapon. Of course, that doesn't work all the time, which is what you need experience for. And of course, there's the 'drunk-tank' method."

"The 'drunk-tank' method?"

"Also known as 'let's-shove-a-newbie-in-the-drunk-tank-and-see-what-happens-when-they-touch-the-Ancient-artifact' method." All of the Generals blinked again. The last thing they had expected was a cadet with extensive knowledge of an extinct culture and their language, or one with a strange sense of humour that she was willing to demonstrate to her superiors.

Wedge supposed that she had somehow inherited it, but he had no idea that her whole race were like her. He started to ask the question that everyone had on their minds, but was interrupted by Admiral Ackbar, who had just walked in to find: a bunch of Republic officers looking very confused; two prisoners bound and gagged on the floor; a third prisoner trying to get away without anyone noticing; and one very confident cadet who was grinning at everyone else.

While everybody turned to salute him, Kari turned away, flipped over Commander Antilles and a table, and firmly landed straight in front of the third prisoner, who curled up into a ball. She grinned down at him and said, "You're not going anywhere."

Once Ackbar had been brought up to speed, he had decided to send Rogue squadron to deal with the obvious Imperial threat. And Kari had to go along with them.

Wedge had protested extensively for two hours, citing everything from Kari being an Imperial spy to insulting her piloting ability, but no amount of arguing had changed Ackbar's mind. Of course, he had argued right in front of Kari for those two hours, and he was arguing against her presence. At the end of those two hours, Kari had quite promptly gone apocalyptic at him, and the admiral's next twenty minutes were spent trying to separate them. Eventually he had to call security and have the two of them stunned.

The mission was already off to a bad start.

**Well? Please review!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Sorry, but I probably won't be able to update for the next couple of weeks because of exams, so I decided to give you guys an extra-long chapter this time.**

Chapter Five: Trust

Kari glanced up from her datapad and shot Wedge a death glare. Tycho Celchu, the squadron's second-in-command, noticed, but said nothing. He had already heard the story from Wes about what had happened in the admiral's office. He hadn't seen Wedge react that violently (verbally, not physically) in ten years. And the cadet... Wedge had confided to Tycho in private that there was something strange about her, but Tycho didn't feel that she was Imperial.

Unfortunately for Tycho, he was now stuck in the middle.

"This planet's a good bet." Kari pointed to the hologram of a remote desert planet. "Survey photographs show Ancient ruins."

"Are you deliberately picking planets where the weather is bad?" Wedge asked, irritated.

"No. Ten thousand years ago, the galaxy's civilisations were highly active. The Ancients would have chosen uninhabited worlds for weapons testing."

"Makes sense," Tycho said before Wedge could make a comment. "If these Ancients were as discreet as you said they were, chances are that all of the worlds we go to will be remote as this one."

Wedge nodded sullenly and said, "Add it to the list." Trawling through Imperial and Republic surveys was a boring business. He looked up at the cadet and frowned, not for the first time today. Despite every objection he could muster, Ackbar had practically ordered him to take Mance. Despite the fact that they knew nothing about these 'Ancients', and nothing about Mance's background!

Kari kept scrolling through surveys, but she was acutely aware of Wedge's frown. Finally she had had enough. Slamming her datapad down, she left the room and headed straight to the gym, not giving a damn about military protocol. People hurried to get out of her way, and she ignored the startled glances of the base personnel.

Derek 'Hobbie' Klivian and Wes Janson were in the gym when Kari came storming in. Both of them correctly concluded that a) Wedge had pissed her off again, and b) leaving her alone was a good idea.

They soon changed their minds when they saw her activate five of the hand-to-hand combat droids. The two Rogues hurried towards her, intending to stop the droids before they could hurt Kari, but halted as she began to defend herself.

It looked more like a dance than anything else. They barely saw her move, yet somehow two droids went flying across the room and hit the far wall with a crash.

Now Wedge and Tycho stormed in. Or rather, Wedge stormed and Tycho hurried after him. He stopped and just watched the fight. Wedge's eyes grew wider and wider, and then he finally turned and left the room.

Ten minutes later, the fight was over. All five droids had had their asses thoroughly kicked, and now were stumbling back towards their places. Kari left the room, ignoring the wide-eyed stares.

Hobbie blinked several times in rapid succession and ran through the last ten minutes in his head. He thought about Kari's fighting style, and realised that he hadn't seen anything like it before.

Kari walked quietly back to her room. She knew that she would have to apologise to the commander for leaving like she did. Pressing in her code, Kari stopped in the doorway and turned the lights on.

Wedge Antilles was standing in the center of her very small room. With a massive frown on his face. Kari stepped inside and let the door close. "Sir?"

"Cadet."

"I have a name. It's not 'cadet'."

"It's your rank, though."

"Depends on who you ask." Kari crossed her arms and glared at him.

"And what does that mean?" Wedge's eyes flashed with anger.

Kari suddenly thought of a good idea. "How about this, Commander? If you can guess where my homeworld, Earth, is, then I'll tell you anything you want to know. But if you can't, I'll save my secrets for another time. Fair enough?"

Wedge's eyes narrowed, but he nodded in agreement. "Fine. Earth, you said?" At Kari's nod, he walked past her to the door.

He opened it, but was stopped by a comment from Kari: "Commander, another clue: Earth is further away than you can imagine."

The next day, Kari stumbled down to the mess hall.

She was late.

That damn commander had set her alarm chrono to an hour later than usual. And now she was late for a meeting with Antilles and Celchu.

Wes and Hobbie were eating breakfast when Kari walked in. Remembering the display she had caused yesterday, they sat down on either side of her. "Hello," Wes said brightly.

"Hello sirs." Kari groaned and just looked at her food, which looked even worse than the food that was served in Atlantis.

"You fight pretty well," Hobbie said.

Kari snorted. Even Todd couldn't beat her. "Sir, I've had martial arts training from the time I was ten."

"I really-" Wes was interrupted by Wedge's arrival.

"You're late, Mance."

Kari noted that he had used her name. Something had finally sunk into his thick head. "Sorry sir. My alarm 'mysteriously' set itself to an hour late."

Wedge grinned. He had spent most of yesterday's afternoon searching through records in Coruscant's massive library. What he had found intrigued him. But at least he had his answer. "Mance..." he motioned for her to follow him out of the mess hall. Going to his office, where they wouldn't be overheard, Kari sneaked a few glances at him.

He was smiling.

He was actually in a good mood.

This had to be about that damn bet.

Tycho was standing outside Wedge's office, waiting for his commander. He was puzzled about Wedge's recent behaviour. Yesterday, he had asked for everything to do with a planet called 'Earth'. The lists of civilised worlds known to the Republic hadn't turned up anything. Neither had a search of surveyed planets. When Tycho had asked what it was all about, Wedge merely said something about Earth being in connection with 'their mysterious little cadet'.

It was unlike Wedge to be so mysterious. Tycho watched patiently as the man in question approached him, with Kari trailing behind.

As they stepped into Wedge's office Kari began to get considerably more nervous. He was still bloody grinning, and if she didn't know better, Celchu looked confused.

"Mance... Kari. You come from another galaxy, don't you?"

Kari's jaw dropped. "How the hell did you guess?"

He slid a datapad over to her. She picked it up and found her jaw dropping again. "You based your guess off two sentences in a thousand page document?"

"Yep," Wedge said smugly, "Now I believe that you have to tell me whatever I want to know."

Kari groaned and rolled her eyes. "What then?"

"What's the name of your galaxy, and how far away is it?"

"Milky Way, and 9, 450, 000 light-years."

Wedge blinked in shock. He hadn't thought that it would be that far away. "Your mission?"

"My mission is to observe the inhabitants of MAG-626 and report on the Republic and the Empire, in an attempt to find out who the 'good guys' are, basically."

"So... no invasion plans?"

Wedge had his answer as Kari recoiled in shock. "Hell no! Never!"

"Then why are you here?" Tycho asked.

"My people are explorers. That's what we do. It's everything to us, and to me."

Wedge thought for a moment. "I suppose that you have some way of calling home?"

"Yeah..." Kari wasn't sure where he was going with this.

"Which means you must have somebody you report to. Can we talk with them?"

"John? You want to talk to John?" Kari considered the situation, and came to the conclusion that she could trust Wedge and Tycho. "Okay." She grabbed her comlink and signalled Hope.

He arrived a few minutes later. "Hey buddy, you still have that beacon I gave you?"

Hope replied, OF COURSE I DO. He opened a small compartment in his dome and Kari plucked out a small device that fitted in the palm of her hand. Pressing and holding a button on the side, she activated it and it produced a holographic display, showing her various options. Flicking quickly through the menus, she found the one she wanted and touched it.

A man flickered into existence in the small office. Wedge and Tycho stood behind Kari. "Hello John."

"Kari! Who are your friends?"

"Commander Wedge Antilles and Captain Tycho Celchu of the New Republic's Rogue squadron. This is General John Sheppard."

John's face took on a smug look. "I told you that you were a good pilot."

"Oh shut up John! And as I remember it, I came second in that contest."

"Yes, against a Wraith who's been flying for thousands of years. Second is still pretty good, especially when you beat all of the pilots on base!"

"She did?" Wedge asked with mild curiosity.

"Yep. Made her uncle proud, she did. Anyway, why did you call?"

Kari brought John up to speed on the events of the last seven months. When she was done, he nodded and asked to speak to Commander Antilles alone.

"Bit of a handful, isn't she?" John asked with good humour.

"Yeah. No kidding."

"I remember when I first met her. Rodney, our scientist was laid out for six months. Zalenka wouldn't join the team, even temporarily, so Rodney decided to give us Kari. We really didn't get along at first."

"We didn't get off to a marvellous start either. She's stubborn-"

"Acts like she's civilian-"

"Refuses orders."

John paused and looked at Wedge. "She refused an order?"

"Yeah. It was for a good reason, though."

"She does that too, from time to time. Don't take it personally."

"Kari also said something about her rank. I know that it's cadet over here, but..."

John rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "She's the niece of: an Admiral, a General, a member of the Jaffa High Council, and a prominent scientist. She was second in command of the science and engineering departments on one of our most important bases, and she has the rank of Major in the Earth Defense Force."

"Ah. No wonder why she didn't like me calling her 'cadet'."

"A word of advice, commander, when dealing with Kari: You don't control her. She's like her uncle. With my team, I had a civilian and two people who could kick my ass from one galaxy to the next. I didn't control anything, and I could only hope that we looked like a team to everyone else."

"Are you saying she doesn't follow a chain of command?"

"Yes and no. She seems to like you, though, which is a good start. I think that when it comes down to it, Kari will follow your orders."

Wedge nodded. "How long have you known her?"

"About ten years, so I know what I'm talking about."

Several days later, Kari was overseeing the delivery of equipment to her new lab. She had John ship it all the way from Atlantis. When Dr. Weir had heard the reasons, she had decided to give Kari the latest equipment.

Wedge and Tycho walked into her lab. "Hello."

"Hi. Looks like you've got all your stuff," Wedge said.

"Yeah I hope this is all we need. anyway I asked you two to meet me here because I need your ids."

The two men looked baffled, so Kari explained further, "These cabinets and shelves are secured with a special system that requires a voiceprint, fingerprint and retinal scan to open any compartment. The system already recognizes me, but I thought that you two should have access as well."

Tycho shrugged. "Good idea."

"Here." Kari went over to a terminal and brought up the security program. When the two men had finished inputting their details, she saved it. "Done."

Later that afternoon, Kari was due to meet with Wedge. When she didn't turn up, he began searching the ship for her. Looking in her lab, the most obvious place, he called, "Kari!"

"What?" came the reply.

Poking around, he couldn't see her. "Where are you?"

"Under the bench." Wedge went to look, but she stopped him. "Don't!"

"Kari. What happened?" he asked softly.

"Promise you won't laugh?"

"I promise." When Kari crawled out, Wedge nearly went back on his promise involuntarily.

Her hair was silver.

And it was longer than before, reaching the middle of her back.

"Are you okay?" Kari nodded. Wedge felt sorry for her, so he wrapped his arms around her and gave her a hug. "You poor thing. What happened?"

"I was studying one of the artifacts when it activated. I've tried to cut it and dye it, but it just grows back and the dye runs off it like water!"

Wedge sighed. When the rest of the squadron, Wes especially, heard about this, they would give her hell. Unfortunately, there was no way to turn it back. "You do know that we have a briefing in two hours?"

Kari groaned and hit her head on the desk. "I know!" she moaned.

"And you're sure that you can't turn it back?"

"Yes!"

"You poor thing."

Two hours later, Kari walked into the briefing room. Several of the Rogues had double-takes as they saw her hair, but they took one look at the scowl on her face and didn't say anything.

All except Wes. He looked at her hair and decided to try and cheer her up. "Hey, Kari, there's something wrong with your hair!"

She looked at him, a sudden calm coming over her features. Hobbie saw the anger in her eyes and stood up, striding across the room and grabbing Kari's shoulders. "Calm."

Kari looked straight into his eyes. "Fine," she growled.

"Sit." Hobbie manoeuvred her into a chair, then sat down next to her.

Wedge and Tycho entered the room, and immediately noticed the way Kari was glaring at Wes, and also noticed when Hobbie grabbed one of Kari's hands and squeezed it lightly. Wedge went to the podium and scattered conversations amongst the Rogues stopped. "All right people, our first destination is a planet called Aupax, first contacted by the Imperials fourteen years ago."

Tycho continued, "The contact was a disaster. The Imperials were thrown off the planet, and there's been no communication since. We can safely assume that the natives will be very suspicious of us."

"Any suggestions on how we approach them?" Wedge asked.

"Leave the Eternity outside the system," Kari said. "If we arrive with a cruiser over their world, it won't send a good message."

"But what if we need backup?" Inyri Forge countered.

"If the natives see a warship pop out of hyperspace, they won't help us!" Kari retorted.

"Do we need their help?"

"Yes! They may have information we don't!"

"Unfortunately, Kari's right. After the disaster with the Imperials, I can't imagine that these people will react nicely to us turning up uninvited," Tycho said.

After this exchange, the rest of the briefing went smoothly. Most of the Rogues were angry at having to use fourteen-year-old-intelligence, but Kari wasn't.

Sometimes she had to use million-year-old-intelligence.

Wedge walked past Kari's lab late that night, and saw the light on. He opened the door to find Kari bending over an Ancient artifact. "What are you doing up this late?"

"Just working. What are you doing?"

"Well, I was just about to get some sleep." Wedge frowned; Kari was most definitely up to something. "What are you up to?"

"Nothing. Just trying to at least classify one of these artifacts before I go to sleep." Kari kept a perfect straight face and tried her best to sound innocent.

She didn't fool him, but Wedge left the lab anyway and prayed that whatever it was, it wouldn't hurt the mission.

The next day, Wes walked into the mess hall, very pissed off.

And with bright orange hair that matched his flightsuit perfectly.

**Please review and tell me what you think!**


End file.
